What Went Before
by Strawberry Shortcake123
Summary: Companion oneshot to Our Eternity trilogy. Max and Fang may be in love and be married and have kids, but at the center of all that, they're still just best friends facing the world together.


**Another short little oneshot I had an idea for. The baby, Raven, who is mentioned in this one is the baby aforementioned in Maternal Instincts. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go read that one!**

The kids were at school.

The baby was down.

Fang had the day off work.

That meant it was just the two of us. And _that_ meant…

"Did you burn the popcorn?" Fang demanded, yanking open the microwave door and pulling out the bowl of black popcorn. "Max. Seriously."

"Sorry!" Holding my nose against the burnt smell, I crossed the kitchen and opened the back door. "Throw it out, throw it out!"

He joined me and tossed the entire bag into the yard. I slammed the door shut behind it. Another one of my failed cooking attempts, thrown to the birds.

"Alright," Fang said, grabbing another bag. "_I'm_ making it."

I sighed. "That's probably for the best."

Five minutes later, we had a nice, big bowl of very _white_ popcorn, and we settled in front of a movie with it in Fang's lap. I stretched out on the couch with my head on his stomach, felt his hand absentmindedly rubbing circles on my own. It was so peaceful, the kind of peace we didn't usually get to enjoy, what with five kids in the house. Being alone like this once in a while didn't seem like nearly enough, but we took what we got.

"Those are the stupidest freaking special effects _ever_," I griped, watching a cheesy action scene unfold in front of me. When you'd seen it in real life, the fake stuff in movies just couldn't compare.

"Did you see when the guy's leg got cut off, there was a fake leg laying on the ground but you could still see his real leg?" Fang asked, smirking, eyes still glued to the television.

"Yes!" I exclaimed, sitting up. "That's what I meant! They should hire _us _to do them!"

"They should," he agreed, gently taking hold of my shoulders and pulling me back to lean on him again.

"Here's what we'll do," I said, pulling my legs up to my chest and turning to put my chin on his. "We'll both quit our jobs and go to Hollywood with our wings hanging out, so we get media attention. Then people will try to give us acting jobs, but we'll just want the special effects ones, which of course they'll give us because we're awesome. Then we make tons of money _and_ fix all of Hollywood's problems with action movies. It's a win-win!"

Fang laughed, a low, deep chuckle that I could feel vibrating through his chest. "Sounds like a plan."

I smiled and settled in again to watch the movie. A few minutes later, when I was engrossed in a slightly better action scene, I shrieked when I was suddenly pushed onto the floor.

"Fang!" I hissed as he pinned me to the ground, a mischievous smirk playing on his lips. "You made me scream, what if Raven wakes up? We're lucky he's asleep at all."

"He'll be fine, he was tired," Fang said nonchalantly, straddling me, keeping my wrists pinned, and sticking his face in mine. "How ya doin'?"

"Get the hell off me, Fang," I said, wiggling beneath him but not getting anywhere.

"I don't think so."

I glared at him and got very still. He went still, too, and held my gaze. We stayed like that for ten seconds, twelve.

Then I yanked my hands out of his grasp, catching him off guard. I pushed against him, turning him over so that I was on top. My victory only lasted a moment, though, because Fang did the same to me, and next thing I knew, we were rolling back and forth, wrestling like we were ten years old again.

"What are you guys doing?"

We immediately froze, me on top this time (hell yeah!) and turned to see our seven-year-old twins standing in the doorway.

"What are _you_ doing?" I demanded, more to change the subject than from actual anger. I quickly moved off of Fang and stood up. "Aren't you supposed to wait after the bus drops you off for me to come walk you home?"

"We waited for_ever_," Blake said, taking off his backpack and tossing it on the couch.

"Yeah, and you never came, so we came home," Missouri added.

I glanced at Fang, and he gave a slight shrug. Through this simple communication we could agree: we really couldn't blame the kids, since it was our fault. We'd let it slide.

I was about to tell them this, but they had apparently already lost interest in the conversation, as Missouri announced, "I wanna cookie!" and ran to the kitchen with Blake right behind her.

Once they were gone, Fang looked at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes, and I prepared myself for another surprise attack. Just as he grabbed me around the waist and started tickling me, though, a sharp cry echoed through the house.

I sighed as I broke out of his grasp. Our fun day was officially over. "I'll get him. Go make sure Blake and Missouri don't make a mess, will you?"

And here we were, back to our lives of husband and wife, mom and dad, just trying to keep the house under control.

**It's just a short thing- I'm not all the impressed with it, but I'm going to post it anyway. I hope you were at least mildly entertained. : )**


End file.
